The New Organizing Institute's three-day boot camp wrapped with a lighthearted session from Zack Exley which in my Day 3 notes is distinguished by nothing but the text of his single powerpoint slide. Zack ran a little confessional, goading attendees into owning up to e-activism sins both venal and cardinal, which elicited this priceless nugget whose author and origin we'll leave safely obscure... One organizer reported having had a boss who constituted the agency's e-mail list by mining, sans permission, the address book and cc lists built up in his own correspondence. Dubious enough, though a tiny organization might get away with it to seed a list with personal friends. Apparently this list, in its mass-mailing form, had a habit of self-immolation, because on what sounds like more than one occasion, the entire thing was deleted or otherwise broken down and required rebuilding. At that point, said supervisor would rebuild the list in the exact same way, causing people who had unsubscribed themselves to be forced back on. Confronted over this behavior, this dialogue (and I'm paraphrasing a paraphrase, but the gist is all one needs) ensued:

"You wouldn't say it was wrong if I stepped on the lawn at General Electric to protest their participation in an illegal war, would you?" "No, that wouldn't be wrong." "Well, here I might also be breaking what you perceive as a law. But it's not wrong either, because these people need to get this information."

In case it needs repeating: please do not spam.